Anyone who’s spent any time at all with a kid at home knows there are plenty of unanswerable questions in the world. My friend Diane, the mother of 3-year-old Maisie, has lately been forced to ponder the existential questions of scarecrows. As in, why aren’t they scary?

Ha! you think. (I can hear you thinking this.) That’s an easy one to explain, you’re saying. Go ahead. I’ll give you a minute to come up with an answer.

My own kids had such questions as: How far is a mile to an ant? And, my favorite, a two-parter: How big is the universe really, and is what is on the other side of the universe still considered the universe, or is it a second universe? (I’ll let you just guess the question that follows that one, and the one that follows that one….and on and on until you start hitting your head with a hammer and screaming.)

But my kids and Maisie are rank amateur questioners when it comes to the the people who wrote in to Daniel Engber’s “Explainer” column in Slate magazine. Engber is one of those talented people who goes out and looks things up. Recently he’s explained  such pressing questions as how to circumcise an adult male and whether the water they found on Mars is drinkable: two things that I know have been bothering all of us.

But it turns out that there are some questions people have requested that Dan answer for them, but which he has mysteriously passed on. And he’s asking us, the reading public, to vote on which of his unanswered questions he should really pursue. After you read the questions, you can vote at ask_the_explainer@yahoo.com.

But I just have to share with you some of my favorite (unanswered) questions–and I’d love it if you’d send me some of your own questions that have never been successfully explained to your satisfaction. (For those of you–and you know who you are–who know how to get to a blog but don’t know how to do anything else once you’re there, just click on “Comment” at the top of this post, and leave your questions there.)

~How can I tell if I was the first person to use the term “K-fed-up” in relation to Britney’s divorce?

~Why is the No. 8 always the same combination (tamale, enchilada, rice, beans) in any Mexican restaurant I visit? This includes primarily the southeast United States but not obvious franchises.

~PYGMIES: How/when/where/still in existence/do we mate with them?

~Working in my yard yesterday, I killed a gnat in my ear canal, where it had flown. I couldn’t remove the body as my finger was too fat. What happens to it now?

~i need more money…..what business can i start that will not take a lot of time…i have internet access daily………..and i have saturday morning free before 12 noon to run around. i work from 7am to 9:30 pm…………..

~Is it possible to collect all the cookie dough in Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream and actually bake cookies from it?

~How clean is bar soap in a public bathroom? Is it “self-cleaning,” since it’s soap? It seems like a health hazard to me.

~Given the exchange and dispersion of matter, how likely is it/how often do we inhale/consume and/or incorporate into our own protein structure molecules that were once in some historical figure, say Abraham Lincoln?

~I have noticed that a lot of mainstream movies feature men peeing. Are the actors really peeing?

~yea i have my own 620 gang and i dont know how to run it to make not look like a little bitch gang joke it is just me and my friend how do i run it?